Trophia Brown stood in the middle of a gym off Fisher Ferry Road and shouted encouragement at the dozens of men and women sprinting in circles around her.

“Let’s pick it up! You can go faster,” Brown quipped as beads of sweat slowly began to drip from the faces of the mostly smiling members of her boot camp.

The camp tests the limits of those who want to exercise, putting them through a gauntlet of sprints, tire-lifting and cardio exercises that push those who want to better themselves physically.

Brown acts as the group’s trainer, but she also serves as its motivator and, at times, drill sergeant in hopes of maximizing her students’ effort.

“She holds us accountable,” Zach Collier said with a laugh. “She’ll call us out on Facebook. If you post something fried on there, she’ll ask us why we’re eating that.”

The boot camp runs for several weeks and combines group exercises with different circuits that involve a variety of workouts to help build different sets of muscles.

“The purpose of the circuits is to kind of just work each muscle, kind of build everybody’s strength and endurance up,” Brown said. “Usually every day we do circuits, and it is outdoor and indoor.”

As the group warms up inside the brightly lit gym, stories from work and home echo throughout the building. Most participants have quickly learned that lifting weights and pushing each other makes everyone much closer than they would have realized.

“My favorite part about it is just working together. Everyone encourages each other,” Patricia Hunt said. “We have a great trainer, a great assistant, and it’s just great motivation. We all encourage each other, like come on, you can do that last lap, lift that last rep. That’s the fun part about it.”

Brown has been heading boot camps for seven years now and knows how addicting they can become once the initial fears most people have wither away.

“Everyone needs to come to a boot camp. Everyone needs to experience a boot camp,” she said. “It’s the best ever. It can become an addiction,” she said.

“Think about your health. Think about your family. You want to be around to be with your family. Just do it for yourself. We all have the same amount of time. Surely you can find an hour and a half out of your busy schedule to do something for yourself.”